


to feel again

by annadavidson



Series: heaven's got a plan for you (an inquisitor amell au) [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: AU, Dragon Age AU, Dragon Age Prompt Exchange, Gen, Inquisitor Amell, Inquisitor Amell AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 14:59:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10026968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annadavidson/pseuds/annadavidson
Summary: No. No. No. This wasn’t happening.Prompt: Amell/Surana is made Tranquil after Jowan’s escape. Through a strange series of events, Amell/Surana is also at the conclave when it explodes, and becomes the Inquisitor. The mark may or may not have some effect on their status as Tranquil.





	

No. No. _No._ This wasn’t happening. Fear clutched his heart and twisted his stomach. He opened his mouth to protest, to _beg_. He’d never been one to beg before. Since being taken from his family, since seeing his mother begging the Templars to give her back her son, he’d never begged for anything. To beg was to let people know they held power over you. He never asked for anything. He took what he wanted. He’d wanted his best friend to live a life without fear. He’d wanted his best friend to be free. He’d thought he could take that… He’d been so wrong.

Jowan’s blood magic hadn’t been enough to take out all of the Templars. Any plans he’d had of running away with the other mage, of keeping his friend safe, were thrown out the window. In that moment, Christian had known what he had to do. So he revealed the identity of the blood mage they had never seen coming – the blood mage they had never expected. He’d fought his way to the door, Jowan safely behind him. He’d combined blood magic with ice and fire spells. And when he’d needed to, he’d used his staff as a blunt force against Templar armor.

The last word he would ever say to his best friend, was ripped from his throat. One word, filled with sorrow and fear. He wondered if he’d looked at Jowan the same way his mother had looked at him as his father had tried to pull her back to him and their other children. He wondered if he looked like he knew this would be the last time they’d see each other.

_“Run!!”_

The word echoed in his mind now. He should have ran with him. Instead, he’d stayed back, even after his magic had been dispelled. He’d picked up a fallen Templars sword. He’d never fought with a sword before, but he’d swung it with all his strength at anyone who dared to try to get past him, to get outside to stop Jowan. He’d even resorted to kicking and punching.

Perhaps he was lucky that when Greagoir got up, he didn’t run him through with his sword. Perhaps it was sentimental – Irving and Greagoir had both played a large part in raising him since he’d first arrived at the Circle. Perhaps the Maker showed mercy, letting him live.

But it didn’t feel merciful. He didn’t feel lucky. The alternative felt so much worse than death. He’d always known it was a possibility. It was the only alternative to the Harrowing. Even after he’d completed the Harrowing, choosing to learn blood magic had kept the threat of a mere possibility ever present. Now he heard the word spoken by Greagoir. He didn’t register what else was said. The world blurred around him after that single word.

_Tranquil._

“Greagoir, please–!” he tried to beg, tried to plead, but two Templars grabbed his arms and shoulders firmly. Based on the previous fight, they obviously saw him as enough of a threat to warrant two of them simply to hold him back. What they didn’t get was that he never wanted to hurt Greagoir or Irving. The Circle wasn’t perfect or even close to good, but the two men had played a large role in raising him. Since being taken from his biological father, they were the closest to fathers he had. He never wanted to do anything to hurt them.

But the look on Irving’s face told him that he had. Disappointment, betrayal. They mixed together and showed in how Irving couldn’t bring himself to look at him. That hurt like a backhanded slap. The way that Greagoir looked at him with a mixture of remorse, frustration, and disappointment. Like a parent giving up on a child. That was the last look he would remember from Greagoir. The last expressions he would associate with the two men who had watched him grow, guided him to become the mage he was.

And oh how disappointed they were in that very mage.

Christian’s voice rose and tore at his throat as the Templars pulled him away to the cells in the tower’s basement. He cried, _begged_ for them to stop, that he was sorry. He was sobbing by the time he was thrown and locked away in a cell. Perhaps it was good that he would never know sorrow again. He would never suffer, never cry. He would never grieve for himself, for the life he would never get to live. But he wasn’t grieving out of the fear of death. He grieved out of fear of living a colorless life. He would never feel sorrow again…

But sorrow was the last thing he felt.

* * *

What was this… this _thing?_ This throb in his hand? This _pain._ The sensation of pain felt foreign, odd, unnatural. It… It _felt._

He stared down at his hand, at the glowing green mark sliced across the palm. It flared, and he made a pained noise before gritting his teeth. Maybe he should have been scared or confused, but all he felt was relief because he _felt._ For eleven years, he had forgotten what it truly felt like to feel anything. For eleven years, he had known that at one point he had felt things like happiness and pain and had thoughts of his own. For eleven years, he had known that he used to dream, but he had forgotten what it felt like to dream. For eleven years, he had felt nothing.

And now he felt _everything._

The floor he was knelt on was _cold._ The shackles on his wrists were _hard_ and _heavy._ The air held a _chill_ untouched by the torches that lit the room. The sight of swords drawn, their blades pointing like the needle of a compass at him was a familiar feeling. It created a knot in his stomach, the sensation of being threatened. It triggered fight or flight like it always had in the Circle. He had always wanted to fight back but had chosen flight each time to protect himself and the ones he cared about.

Now he _felt_ again – and he felt like _fighting._

He didn’t even know if his magic was back. It had been so long since he’d fought. His body would feel rusty, weakened by years of no longer feeling the need to stay in shape, to stay fit, strong. Still, he pushed himself to his feet. He heard someone order him to get back down. His hair fell in his face, hanging over his shoulders. His blue eyes were daggers as he settled his gaze on the soldier trying to tell him what to do.

He didn’t know what was happening. He didn’t know why he was shackled in a cell, a circle of swords threatening to cut him down. The men and women holding the swords weren’t dressed like Templars. Where was he? Who were these people? He didn’t know how or why he could suddenly feel again, or what the green mark on his hand was. All he knew was that he was himself again. He felt whole again. He _felt_ again.

He was finally Christian Amell again.

His right hand, the one without the throbbing green mark, flared with sparks of electricity. He pushed back any sense of relief that seeing his magic returned to him brought. He still remembered how to cast spells. He remembered all those years of training and studying. He brought his hands up together, pressing a finger to his temple and remembering the right amount of focus to put into it. A force of his magic shot out, pushing the soldiers away and causing them to stumble, a few almost dropping their swords. He moved quickly, his senses heightened, adrenaline flowing through him. Every feeling, emotion, and thought returned to him fueled him, woke every muscle in his body.

He took out one with a precise lightning strike. He didn’t want to kill, just subdue. He swung his shackled wrists, hitting another soldier on the side of their head before they could bring their sword down on him. He could have used one of the swords for blood magic – the thought occurred to him, but it was blood magic that had gotten him turned tranquil in the first place. He couldn’t bring himself to use that magic again, not yet at least. His attack became alternating fire and ice spells – his specialty. He liked to put opposites together. Sometimes he mixed ice with lightning.

He stayed on the offensive. He ignored the sweat that beaded his skin, the fatigue that crept into him. Oddly enough, it felt so good to expense himself, to work himself to the point of exhaustion. He hadn’t used this much magic before, not even when he’d been protecting Jowan. He had been on the defensive then, now he forced the soldiers to that side. He refused to have to defend himself. He refused to be backed into a corner. He wanted to back the soldiers into a corner, and so far he was.

Until a sword was balanced over his shoulder, the blade mere inches from his face. He froze, alarms going off in his mind. Exhaustion consumed him, and he dropped to his knees, breathing hard, panting. He could almost see his breath in the chilled air. His body shook. Sweat soaked him. It would have been easy to collapse fully onto the ground. It took more effort than it should have to simply keep himself on his knees and not his stomach. He knew if he wanted to cast spells again anytime soon, he would need a lyrium potion.

A woman with short dark hair walked around him while another woman clad in a hood kept to the side of the room, arms behind her back. The dark haired woman held the sword and kept it leveled on him. She looked angry, _furious._ The hooded woman looked calm but in a calculating way and not a comforting one.

“Who _are_ you?” the dark haired woman demanded. The tip of her sword rested under his chin. She clearly wasn’t going to underestimate him like the soldiers had. She was an actual threat, he deduced. If all he did was flinch, he was certain she would take it as a sign that he was going to fight again. If that happened, he knew his head would no longer be attached to his neck.

“Christian Amell,” he answered honestly. He didn’t think there was any use in lying. He lifted his head up. The flickering light of the torches illuminated his face and the sun marked in the center of his forehead. The brand that for the past eleven years had been enough to tell everyone why he talked the way he did, acted the way he did. The brand that had told everyone why he held no emotion.

The dark haired woman’s eyes widened. “You’re… You’re _tranquil?”_

The hooded woman stepped forward, regarding the mark on his forehead. Her brows knit together in confusion. “But you used magic… You can’t be tranquil.”

That word. Maker, he hated that word now. It reminded him of begging and pleading. It reminded him of disappointed looks and the sickening sensation of fear. It reminded him of days and nights spent sobbing in a cell, mourning the life he would be forced to live, mourning the feelings he would never be able to feel. His face twisted with disgust at the word. Tranquil had never been an insult but a threat thrown at him, dangled above his head, used anytime he took one step out of line. But now? He had already been made tranquil. It no longer scared him. Death didn’t even scare him. It only angered him.

“I am _not_ tranquil,” he spat. He forced himself to rise to his feet, his legs shaking and his muscles aching in protest. The sword followed him, the tip coming to press faintly against the soft, exposed skin of his throat. But he didn’t take it as a threat. At the moment, nothing threatened him. It was a challenge, and he planned to face this challenge. He didn’t know what was going on, why he was there or where he was, but he planned to find out.

“I am  _not_ tranquil,” he repeated. It felt so good to say those words, and even better to say the next ones.  _“I am a mage.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Like/reblog on Tumblr [here](http://magicrobins.tumblr.com/post/157844934970/to-feel-again).


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